Fast Parallels? Contesting Mobile Policy Technologies

Abstract

This article extends recent examinations of incomplete or disrupted policy mobility by examining the politically volatile case of policies to manage the regional impacts of decarbonization in Australia. The article's extended case study shows how political interests differently incorporated figments of circulating policy into longstanding debates and how more‐than‐local political networks defeated an antipolitical, technocratic exercise in ‘new regional’ governance. ‘Follow the policy’ methods could not have revealed the complexities of this case. The article concludes that mobilities approaches need to be more attentive to institutional arrangements, to the contested politics of policy formation and to the ambiguities of perceived policy likenesses. This case highlights the importance of considering how antipolitical institutional architectures facilitating policy mobility relate to established political power networks.

Knowledge creation and mobility in and through futures workshops

“…Mobility can be defined as a change of position in a specific space (Jöns et al, 2017), and knowledge becomes mobile through people and processes that enable knowledge to circulate (Weller, 2017).…”

“…Knowledge-mobilizing situations included both formal and informal meetings, and emails were also sent and workshop material distributed. Futures knowledge became mobile through processes and individuals when they thought, discussed and acted in their own organizations (Weller, 2017). Some participants reported that they had already used the futures knowledge in their organizations, for example, in strategic planning.…”

Just transition? Strategic framing and the challenges facing coal dependent communities

“…Within the then-ruling federal Labor party, support for the CEF and the Gillard leadership hinged on delivering a just transition in the Valley. Yet there was little knowledge and no consensus on what a just transition might entail (Weller, 2017a).…”

“…Given Australia's institutional arrangements, framing the problem as being about regional futures rather than as about closing coal-fired power stations made the problem more complex, more politicized and more uncertain than would otherwise have been the case. This is not to deny the existence of local disputes about how best to tackle the Valley's immediate problems (see Weller, 2017a), but rather to suggest that their apparent intractability stems from the realities of the area's material conditions and the implausibility of the proposition that market forces could offer a remedy.…”

“…The vehicle of governance, the LVTC, was actively misrepresented by policymakers as functioning to empower the local community (Beckley et al, 2011;LVTC, 2012a). In fact the committee's activities were dominated by Melbourne's globally inflected best practice agendas (Weller, 2017a). The committee silenced the elected Latrobe City Council and excluded the most affected constituencies from discussions.…”